Ethnographic Discourse Research Articles

Strange mythologies: cultural and linguistic opacity in Argonauts of the Western Pacific

ABSTRACT During the years he spent conducting fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands, Bronislaw Malinowski became convinced that foreign cultures should be studied in their entirety, as fully integrated, “organic” structures. In what follows, I explore his attempt to achieve this objective, with regard to a specific cultural practice, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922). I begin by discussing his use of certain tropes, discursive techniques, and narratorial modes that are more often associated with the genres of travel writing and adventure fiction. I then address his conviction that even the most mundane features of social and cultural life carry ethnographic value, allowing the anthropologist to produce a comprehensive overview of any given culture. As I argue, however, this totalizing impulse is frustrated on more than one occasion in Argonauts, when Malinowski encounters various “opacities” that cannot be so easily assimilated into ethnographic discourse, thus revealing the limits of the very omniscience that he claims to be pursuing.

Respectable conviviality: Orthodox Christianity as a solution to value conflicts in southern Ethiopia

AbstractThis article explains the recent emergence of Orthodox Christianity in a majoritarian Evangelical Protestant community in southern Ethiopia. Examining conversion motives and forms of religious engagement, I show that Orthodoxy is attractive to erstwhile followers of traditional practice because it affords them the solution to a value conflict. Joining an institutionalized ‘religion’ associated with national elites, converts attain the respectability formerly denied them by Evangelicals. And since Orthodoxy is less puritan than local Evangelicalism, conversion does not come at the expense of conviviality. An ethnographic discussion of this process of value harmonization provides the basis for a conceptual contribution to anthropological value theory, while also offering new insights for the debate about different modalities of Christian change.

Ethnography of economic globalization in Mapuche and forest territory of South-Central Chile

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose an ethnographic discussion surrounding the sociocultural dimensions of the contemporary economy, using the dynamics of monoculture expansion into the indigenous territories of South-Central Chile as an empirical reference.Design/methodology/approachFrom an ethnographic approach, the paper systematizes some ideas about the difference and inequality that have redrafted the current relationships between forestry companies and Mapuche communities within the context of international certification of forestry management.FindingsFindings indicate that difference and inequality, are today managed from global economic rationality and their control impacts directly on quotidian life of diverse and unequal territories. Considering this, this paper gets to conclude that these conditions, while never ceasing to deepen their expression, have been recrafted from the new references of the global economy.Research limitations/implicationsFor the critical ethnographic approach to be applied, it is necessary to design and implement wide access, which means this type of study usually has limitations when not being able to get to every scale of economic development. For this reason, it is important to keep the methodological discussion, about the ethnography of the economy.Originality/valueThe study puts in perspective intercultural relations and the inequality of territories in the framework of the global economy. Illustrates how the managing of the international market of wood and pulp design and insides in local quotidian life systems.

Contemporary use of proverbs in Akan news broadcast

Proverb is a universal phenomenon which plays very significant roles in language use and communication. The Igbo of Nigeria says: “Proverb is the palm oil with which words are eaten”, meaning without the ornament of proverbs, words are hard to swallow. Akan people of Ghana also believe that: If you speak without proverbs, your speech is not complete in sweetness. Proverbs have been used extensively in the media since the establishment of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in 1954. Therefore, this paper analyses the use of proverbs in radio and television news broadcasts in Akan. Four radio stations and three Television stations were selected for the study. Recordings of 6:00 a.m, 12:00 and 6:00 p.m. News from the four Radio stations and evening News from the three Television stations constituted the data for the study. After listening to the recordings, follow-up interviews were conducted. The study used an integrated approach for data analysis. Critical Discourse Analysis and Politeness Theory are the theoretical frameworks adopted for this ethnographic discussion. Both theories emphasize that in all speech or communication acts; one must consider the text, cultural context, and the setting in which expressions or certain literary devices are used. Analysis of the data indicates that Newscasters/readers in the selected stations use proverbs in their News items. It was further found out that proverbs used in this context are of four categories – original, modified, embellished, and newly coined proverbs. In each case, the proverbs are either used appropriately or otherwise.

A study of Chinese medical students\u2019 communication pattern in delivering bad news: an ethnographic discourse analysis approach

BackgroundBreaking bad news is inevitable for prospective doctors, it is important for medical students to learn how to humanely communicate devastating news to patients. This study explores the discourse strategies used by Chinese medical students when conducting critical conversations via role-play scenarios.MethodsFifty Year-6 medical students attending the ‘Serious Illness Communication Module’ were recruited from a local medical school in Hong Kong. They were asked to participate voluntarily in two role-play scenarios requiring them to break bad news to a simulated patient in Cantonese. The verbal interactions were video-recorded and analysed using an ethnographic discourse approach to unpack the quality of the observed interaction sequences and identify the discourse strategies strategically used by the medical students to overcome any communication breakdowns (e.g. linguistic expressions conveying diagnoses) and show empathy to patients.ResultsSix discourse strategies for delivering bad news were identified in the Chinese context: (1) placing great emphasis on patients’ emotional needs; (2) informing patients with a balanced focus on medical and emotional needs; (3) directing patients’ attention to treatment options; (4) acknowledging concerns about dying patients’ physical discomfort and wishes; (5) directing bad news disclosure to patients; and (6) addressing the family expectations of patients. The majority of the Chinese medical students in this study used a patient-oriented approach to cater to the patients’ emotional and physical needs. They also often informed and acknowledged the patients’ family members.ConclusionsWhen delivering bad news, medical students should be equipped with discourse strategies that effectively balance interpersonal communication with the communication of medical expertise, which is integral to ensuring patients’ participation, their understanding and satisfaction with their clinicians. This is in accordance with the existing communication frameworks for critical conversation and demonstrates awareness of the needs in the Chinese context. However, some students demonstrated poor sensitivity to non-verbal cues, such as tone, manners and attitude. Thus, more training using a culturally appropriate model of communication for critical conversation should be promoted.

Забывая этнос и нацию: этнографические дискуссии и экспертиза «национального вопроса» в период перестройки

Забывая этнос и нацию: этнографические дискуссии и экспертиза «национального вопроса» в период перестройки

Civilized Christ-Followers among Barbaric Cretans and Superstitious Judeans: Negotiating Ethnic Hierarchies in Titus 1:10–14

In Titus 1:10–14, "Paul" describes his opponents as belonging to the notorious circumcision faction, infatuated with "Judean myths," and as embodying the worst qualities of Cretans. Such invective, which would be considered racist according to modern sensibilities, is made more intelligible when contextualized among ancient ethnographic discourses. In this study, I interpret Titus 1:10–14 in conversation with sociologists and postcolonial theorists who have detailed how subjugated groups both are shaped by and (re)shape an implicit ethnic hierarchy established by the dominant society. For example, accounts like Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks introduce us to how ethnic minorities appropriate and denigrate the characteristics and practices of other ethnic groups in order to represent themselves as "civilized" before the colonial "gaze"—often at the expense of other ethnic groups with whom they are in competition for limited recognition and power. I also situate "Paul's" attempt to represent Christfollowers as civilized possessors of paideia (in contrast to barbaric Cretans and superstitious Judeans) within the competitive cultural domain of the so-called Second Sophistic and imperial Roman representations of Christ-followers as barbaric, superstitious, and potentially seditious.

Civilized Christ-Followers among Barbaric Cretans and Superstitious Judeans: Negotiating Ethnic Hierarchies in Titus 1:10–14

In Titus 1:10-14, “Paul” describes his opponents as belonging to the notorious circumcision faction, infatuated with “Judean myths,” and as embodying the worst qualities of Cretans. Such invective, which would be considered racist according to modern sensibilities, is made more intelligible when contextualized among ancient ethnographic discourses. In this study, I interpret Titus 1:10-14 in conversation with sociologists and postcolonial theorists who have detailed how subjugated groups both are shaped by and (re)shape an implicit ethnic hierarchy established by the dominant society. For example, accounts like Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks introduce us to how ethnic minorities appropriate and denigrate the characteristics and practices of other ethnic groups in order to represent themselves as “civilized” before the colonial “gaze”—often at the expense of other ethnic groups with whom they are in competition for limited recognition and power. I also situate “Paul’s” attempt to represent Christ-followers as civilized possessors of paideia (in contrast to barbaric Cretans and superstitious Judeans) within the competitive cultural domain of the so-called Second Sophistic and imperial Roman representations of Christ-followers as barbaric, superstitious, and potentially seditious.

Martín and the pink crayon: peer language socialization in a kindergarten bilingual classroom

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the interactional dynamics of one bilingual, two-way immersion classroom where children came from diverse linguistic, cultural, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Based on an ethnographic discourse analytic study of one kindergarten TWI classroom, I analyze interactional data using participant frameworks as the unit of analysis and develop a linguistic analysis from a language socialization lens. Findings illustrate the ways that children’s talk and communicative behaviors act as peer socializing processes as children move in and out of various participatory roles in conversation. By virtue of their intentional spatial positioning around communal tables, students are socializing each other as participants into a bilingual learning community, even when they are silent participants or overhearers. I argue that this framework is a productive lens through which to analyze bilingual multiparty conversations in a way that does not privilege linguistic codes as a basis for analysis.

Ethnographic journal of three quarantine fellows: between isolation and collective intimacy

This collective writing documents our first month of mandatory quarantine in the context of the coronavirus pandemic in Buenos Aires. As anthropologists and PhD students we face shared uncertainties. How to being there in this context? What ethnographic discourses can we produce? And, above all, how to accompany the situations of extreme need that deepened, in the territories where we work, in the face of the health emergency? Through an autoethnographic exercise we discovered an opportunity to share and discuss concerns about our fieldwork and the socio-affective ties built there, being isolated but together.

El arquitecto y el emperador de Asiria: Arrabal, el canibalismo y la imaginacion de América

The objective of this work is to identify Fernando Arrabal’s play El arquitecto y el emPerador de ASiria (1966) as an allegory of colonialism and show how this is built upon some elements of the imaginacion de America (Miguel Rojas Mix). Specific tropes, among which are quoted the fountain of youth and the cannibalism, allow to place the play as a transatlantic text that dialogues whit the different discourses of the colonization of America, especially with the chronicles of the explorers of the colonial period. Likewise, different aspects of the American stereotype are updated in a parody of the ethnographic discourse, like the good savage and the acculturated.

Paradoxes of white moral experience

Paradoxes of white moral experience

The Invention of ‘Harmful Cultural Practices’ in the Era of AIDS in Malawi

The AIDS epidemic in Malawi and elsewhere has brought sexual and cultural practices under scrutiny for their potential role in transmitting the HIV virus. The discourse of ‘harmful cultural practices’ – a capacious phrase inclusive of practices like initiation ceremonies or widow inheritance that carry connotations of rurality and tradition – has circulated widely as a domain of intervention, actual or potential, by law and public health in Malawi. The discourse, finding expression in media representations, AIDS conferences, and policy and legal discussions, has generated significant attention; yet, there is no empirical evidence that conclusively supports a link between participation in such practices and elevated risk of contracting HIV. In this regard, I employ ethnographic discourse analysis to understand how cultural practices associated with tradition or village life became cast as harmful. I track how ‘harmful cultural practices’ took form as a domain of intervention across scales ranging from policy forums to villages to public health to media. I show how a melange of ‘evidence’, rhetorical turns and public discourse have stabilised ‘culture’ as a realm of risk fit for public health intervention and endless study. In illustrating how ‘evidence’ in these discussions becomes a highly compelling aesthetic prop that takes on a life of its own and aligns with multiple agendas, I depart from arguments that any distinct set of actors with specific interests or intentions (for example, elite Malawians) propagated or authored this discourse. This paper has wider relevance in its interest in how and why certain narratives in the context of African AIDS – particularly those about bodies, risk, sexuality and modernity – gain legitimacy over others. The ‘harmful cultural practices’ narrative finds resonance in postcolonial contexts within a global health–human rights nexus that elevates protection of the individual as property or bearer of rights.

The Image of The Other In Early Modern Imperial Discourses: Venetian Discourse About Istria and English Discourse About Ireland

This paper is focused on the image of the Other in early modern European imperial discourses as exemplified by Venetian discourse about Istria and English discourse about Ireland, which have not been previously compared, in the narratives by Pietro Coppo, Fynes Moryson, John Davies and Barnabe Rich. The authors of the article have analyzed mechanisms of construction of the Image of the Other and political or rhetorical context of its instrumentalization. The examination of English imperial discourses about Ireland and Venetian discourse has demonstrated instrumentalist nature of early modern ethnographic discourses of the Other. Imperial discourse of the Other justified sovereignty of the metropole over the periphery and also communicated knowledge about the Other in order to suggest possible solutions to the problems of governance.

Documenting linguistic and cultural heritage

AbstractThis paper aims to illustrate the relationship between documentary linguistics and ethnographic discourse analysis and to explore how language and cultural practices are connected in order to understand the linguistic practices and Black Tai death ritual as a key site of engagement. The Black Tai death ritual is selected in order to present the determined efforts made in maintaining Black Tai ethnic identity through cultural practices.Nexus analysis is introduced and deployed in this research to present the significance of Black Tai’s key communicative activity and social actions involved. In the analysis, the Black Tai death ritual is investigated. The study shows that documentary linguistics makes a noteworthy contribution to understanding the Black Tai’s linguistic and cultural heritage. It reveals that although death rituals are practiced in much the same way as they were in the past, there have inevitably been some significant changes depending on the locations, with specific adaptations and adopted elements based on the surrounding cultures (i.e., Thai culture and religious beliefs) and socio-economic conditions. Black Tai communities are at a settled stage of their death ritual practices by integrating certain aspects of Buddhism into their rituals.In order to construct a modern Black Tai identity among generations, younger generation engagement is challenging but it is essential for the inter-transmission of death rituals. With this dynamic cultural practice, the Black Tai are a good example of an adaptive and diverse ethnic group.

An Ethnographic Discussion of Fairy Tales and Folktales from Southern Oman

Zusammenfassung Das Anliegen dieses Aufsatzes ist es, eine Sammlung von Märchen und populären Erzählungen aus dem südlichen Oman vorzustellen, um zu zeigen, dass viele der historischen materiellen und kulturellen Setzungen heute noch Bestand haben. Die Erzählungen wurden in den 1970er Jahren in Gibali (auch Jibbalo oder Shari genannt) aufgezeichnet; Gibali ist eine nicht-schriftliche, moderne südarabische Sprache (Rubin 2014). Die Analyse konzentriert sich nicht auf klassische Erzähltypen, sondern bezieht sich vielmehr auf die alltäglichen Lebenszusammenhänge, die sich in den Geschichten der Dhofari spiegeln. Die Aufzeichnungen wurden zum Zeitpunkt der Modernisierung der Region in den 1970er Jahren vorgenommen und enthalten viele traditionelle Elemente der Gibali-Kultur. Diese Aufzeichnungen werden mit anderen schriftlichen Quellen verglichen, um aufzuzeigen, dass die Übermittlung von moralischen Glaubensvorstellungen, z. B. von Schwüren, Djinns, in den Texten eine wichtige Rolle spielt. Die Autorin forscht seit über zehn Jahren über dhofarische und gibalische Kulturen.

“If you don’t improve, what’s the point?” Investigating the impact of a “flipped” online exchange in teacher education

AbstractThis article presents a pedagogical design for teacher education that combines flipped materials, in-class instruction, and telecollaboration (also known as virtual exchange) for foreign language teacher education. The context of this study is a course on technology and language learning for future teachers in which the flipped classroom concept was applied to technology-infused collaborative teacher training between future ESL/EFL instructors located at two partner universities (one in the USA, one in Europe). The three main teaching approaches (flipped materials, in class, and telecollaborative, or “FIT”) were symbiotic in that each structure reinforced the other through reception, discussion, and reflection as a means to help the student teachers bridge the gap between theory and practice. We apply classroom ethnographic discourse analysis to data sources (face-to-face and online discussion groups, student e-portfolios) to look at uptake of ideas, conceptual understanding, and successful transfer of new knowledge, and thereby identify whether the design provides significant learning opportunities for the future teachers. Although most studies of telecollaboration in language teacher education look principally at output, this approach allows an in-depth look at the learning process as knowledge is developed collaboratively between the participants.

Futurelessness, migration, or a lucky break: narrative tropes of the ‘blocked future’ among Serbian high school students

ABSTRACTThis article uses ethnographic discourse analysis to understand how Serbian high school students at ‘Belgrade Professional’ (BP) respond to coursework and discussions about their individual futures. Contextualizing the conversations at BP within broader local and international social forces, the paper shows how students’ perceptions of their future chances are mediated by both the school’s outdated promises of secure skilled employment and a broad understanding of Western liberal democracies as ‘meritocratic’. In short, I argue that BP students recognize the elective ‘choice biography’ as a real pathway to adulthood. However, they primarily imagine the choice biography as existing outside of Serbia, while feeling constrained by – even hostile to – such an idea within the country. To counter choice biography framings of futures in Serbia, students mobilize a discourse I call the ‘blocked future’, comprised of three related narrative tropes informed by the decades-long recession: domestic futurelessness, meritocracy abroad, and local chance. These narrative tropes illuminate the emerging cultural structures in Serbia which reflect how people cope with and processes the conflicting structural demands and unfulfilled promises of the post-socialist transition in everyday life.

China, the Abode of Arts and Crafts: Emergence and Diffusion of a Persian Saying on China in Mongol Eurasia

AbstractBetween 1250 and 1450 a saying about China spread across Eurasia, from Castile to the Indian subcontinent. It is the proverb known as the “eyes of the world”, according to which when it comes to arts and crafts, the Chinese see with two eyes, the Europeans with one, and other nations are blind. This metaphor was widely used by pre-modern Eurasian intellectuals to synthesize the high degree of sophistication and splendour reached by Chinese culture. It has been suggested that the adage originated either in the Byzantine world or in Mongol China, whence it spread to central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Europe. A study of Persian sources, however, seems to invalidate this hypothesis, suggesting a Persian origin. Such Eurasian diffusion of a Persian saying about China illustrates how easily literary images, tropes, and lore could spread across the Mongol empire and how Asian geographic and ethnographic discourses could contribute to the new representation of the world which emerged in the Mongol period. It also advocates for the inclusivity of Persian literary imagery, at times so influent as to trespass the borders both of the Persianate and of the Islamicate world.

Managing transitions through discourse at work

Workplace transitions provide rich material for understanding intercultural interaction. Research on transitions has typically focussed on the sociocultural effects of moving between nations and/or on examples of career change. Boundary crossing at this macro level has provided insight into how newcomers negotiate novel cultural expectations. As workplace discourse analysts our particular interest is the interactional negotiation that occurs as these newcomers move from one environment to the next. In this paper, using the reflections of those who have experienced such transitions, along with an analysis of recordings of professional migrants in new workplace contexts, we demonstrate how micro-level instantiations of these transitions offer a lens on the contrasting and sometimes conflicting societal norms and sociocultural practices which must be managed in these contexts. The analysis makes use of our social realist model for understanding workplace talk (Holmes, Marra and Vine 2011) and our interpretations are supported by ethnographic observations and discussion with those who have observed or experienced these transitions. We conclude by outlining ways in which this approach to understanding interaction can be used to help prepare newcomers to navigate new workplace contexts.